Noida: Cyber police nab three for duping e-commerce firm of ₹2 crore

The cyber police arrested three persons for allegedly cheating an e-commerce firm of over ₹2 crore on the pretext of receiving defective goods, officials said on Thursday

The cyber police arrested three persons for allegedly cheating an e-commerce firm of over ₹2 crore on the pretext of receiving defective goods, officials said on Thursday.

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Police identified the suspects as Rajkumar (31), Arvind Kumar (24) and Sitaram (20), all from Haryana. According to officials, they would purchase electronic goods from the e-commerce website and put in return requests claiming that they were defective. They made payments in both prepaid and cash on delivery modes, said police.

“The suspects had joined hands with some delivery agents who used to take pictures of the products and show them to the management saying that the ‘customers’ returned the defective goods, when in fact they did not. The products were then sold in the open market,” said Vinod Kumar Pandey, investigating officer, Noida cyber police station.

The suspects were nabbed from Hisar, Haryana, police said, adding that they recovered ₹26 lakh, six cellphones, some fake Aadhaar cards and several ATM cards from them.

According to the officials, in March, a Meerut-based owner of an online goods pick-up agency had filed a complaint alleging that they had been duped of over ₹2 crore.

“We probed the case and found that there were at least 20 others associated with the fraud. We are working on identifying them. Delivery agents associated with them and their buyers in Delhi’s wholesale markets will also be apprehended soon,” said Pandey.

On July 26, the cyber police officials had arrested two persons in connection with the case.

Police said that the suspects had opened 99 accounts on the website through multiple virtual numbers. Nearly 120 bank accounts belonging to the suspects have been frozen, they said.

The suspects were booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (whoever fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine any document or electronic record), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 120B (whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death) and relevant sections of the IT Act at the cyber police station in Sector 36, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Lucknow headquarters.